Sunday, 18 November 2007

Shall we dance? Cha-cha-cha.

I feel an urgent need to do something highbrow and cultured. I must purge myself of the tackiness I indulged in last night. What's more worrying is that it was the second Saturday in a row in which I partook of this particular brand of low brand entertainment.

I speak of the hours between 5:50pm and 9:30pm yesterday when I wallowed in a TV diet of Strictly Come Dancing and The X-Factor. What has happened to me? I have wandered into the realms of middle-aged women and teenage girls respectively. I ate my dinner in front of the box in order to watch John Barnes tango.

However, I shall not be coerced by Brucie or Dermott into picking up the phone and spending 25p on a pointless call. Never have I voted in these programmes and never shall I. Eurovision aside of course! This was the case even before all the phone-in scandals started to rear their ugly heads. I'm getting more than a little fed up with constantly hearing about fakery in the world of broadcasting.

Firstly, I accept that it is appalling that people are casting votes and entering competitions but not being included in the final result. Secondly, the BBC were indeed way out of line in manipulating footage of the Queen in order to create a buzz and an exciting trailer.

Despite these incidents, I am still fed up with the seemingly never-ending array of revelations concerning programmes such as Born Survivor and The F Word. Both Bear Grylls and Gordon Ramsey have come under attack for a lack of realism in their shows. Is it only me that has no problem with these so called cons? These are entertainment programmes! As long as the changes made aren't of the sort to hurt someone's reputation or character, then what's the fuss about?

It is just another symptom of political correctness and you really don't want to get me started on the whole, "Baa baa rainbow sheep," debacle.